Chapter 12

THE DREAM CATCHERhad been in a dry dock at Garden Island for two days. In that time, Hope had cleared it of almost all the Spellings’ possessions. She did keep some things—a nice new laptop that had belonged to Ken, and some of Jenny’s more modern jewelry. She was exhausted from constant trips to the shower cubicle to see if Ken was awake, and, if he was, to hold the chloroform-soaked rag over his face until he slept again. Jenny didn’t stir at all. It was as though she knew her husband was lost in the land of dreams, and she’d chosen to join him there.

Between trips to check on her prisoners, Hope spent most of that morning lying on the bow in one of the deck chairs in her bikini, reading the yacht’s operating manual and writing down questions for Ken. She needed a tan if she was going to fit in with the other yachties—she couldn’t look like a newbie or they wouldn’t accept her into their world. Sometimes she closed her eyes and pretended she was at sea, sailing across the Indian Ocean, the sun baking her pale skin a deep golden brown like Jenny’s. She didn’t keep her eyes closed too long, or she’d see flashes, electric zings of light that sometimes contained frightened faces, splashes of blood, clawing fingers. The images played about the corners of her eyes, made her chew her nails. They’d go, in time, these memories. She just had to focus on the plan.

It was almost funny, the way it had all come together one night at the Black Garter while she’d been sitting in the window watching the men outside. One of the girls had wandered in from the main hall with a sea captain’s hat on her head, tipping the brim in the closet mirror and tilting her naked hips. She’d snagged the hat from the leader of a bachelor party, the pack of drunken boys hollering from the back courtyard as other girls danced around the lazy-eyed groom.

“What do you think?” The girl had taken the cap off and sent it sailing across the room into Hope’s hands like a Frisbee. “Captain Hope, reporting for duty.”

Hope had stared at herself in the mirror after the girl had gone, the cap too big on her head, a tiny girl playing dress-up. She’d remembered sailing with her father, those few times he had indulged himself over the years and rented cruisers for a trot around the harbor. Pretending he owned them. Lies and make-believe. Hope was so tired of all the games—the ones the men made her play, the ones she played with herself. Captain Hope, Master of Her Own Destiny.

It would take a miracle to achieve something like that,she’d thought.

Or would it?

What exactly would it take?

Hope walked the length of the vessel now, examining the newly painted surface, and then climbed down the ladder onto the floor of the dry dock. When she’d acquired the Dream Catcher it had been a hideous wine-bottle green, but the guys she’d hired for the makeover had finished the last coat of the new color—a chic, modern ash gray. Hope had started making lists of steps in her plan that very night as she’d huddled away in the back of the brothel, and once the list had been completed, she’d made a new one. She couldn’t remember how many lists it had taken, how many crossed or canceled steps. Find a couple selling their yacht. Find an ally to comfort the couple as they inquired about the sale, someone cute and easy to manipulate, someone who knew how to act in a prescribed role. Hope had followed a recipe she found online for chloroform and cooked it in the brothel kitchen, whistling, as if she were baking a cake.

Picking out and commissioning the fresh paint job on the boat was one step she’d been looking forward to for a while. She stood now with her hand on the vessel and listened to the hull to see if there was any sign of the couple from within. Nothing. She wandered around the back of the boat in her sun hat and glasses and stood watching the men on the ladder as they applied the new name to the side.

“Just in time for the big reveal,” the tall one said. He was a stunning young man in a cut-off undershirt, spattered all over with tiny spots of white paint. He looked as if he were covered in stars. He reached up and began peeling away the paper stencil around the lettering on the hull of the boat.

“The New Hope,” she read. She felt a dark stirring in her chest at the sight of the words. She’d had the boys paint them in a deep crimson. Her dream, written in blood.